The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: AugustWest on February 23, 2006, 04:14:44 am
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I rented Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and watched it tonight.
I knew better than to expect it to be good. My expectations weren't high.
But FUCK! That was a foul insult to the memory of Douglas Adams.
Normally I don't react this way to Hollywood dreck. So it's bad. So what. But the egregious level of suckitude in that movie was just insulting. Good lord, the story was adapted for radio, TV and novels without being butchered and hacked and the addition of cheesy love-story subplots.
I'm PISSED, I tell you, PISSED!
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By what specifically? Besides the # of arms on Zaphod?
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I just haven't watched it. I mean, I'm just not really interested.
Douglas Adams wrote some really amazing, bizarre plots, but his real strength was as a wordsmith. You can't film ships that hang in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. It just won't happen. Well, not without constant narration. The problem lies in the difference between mediums, I guess.
The butchering of the plot and splicing of dialogue is just insult to injury.
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I was just minorly disappointed, not really pissed.
I couldn't believe that it was worse than the TV series, although having said that I actually enjoyed the cheesy production values of the TV series, and the acting was really good.
Anyway, yeah. Old news for me but a disappointment nonetheless.
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I just watched it recently too - I think the key is that I approached it with the lowest possible expectations. As long as the DVD didn't melt in the player and then the player explode and break my TV, I was determined to be happy.
Still, not that great - my least favorite thing ever is when they tack on cheesy love stories because they're marketable. Also, wasn't the Heart of Gold supposed to look something like a sleek running shoe, not a big eye? Not a major deal or anything, but, you know.
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I was just minorly disappointed, not really pissed.
I couldn't believe that it was worse than the TV series, although having said that I actually enjoyed the cheesy production values of the TV series, and the acting was really good.
Anyway, yeah. Old news for me but a disappointment nonetheless.
Likewise, I kind of enjoy the TV series still. It's not a patch on the radio series or book of course but...
The movie did, well... I can't say disappoint, as I wasn't expecting that much. I knew Rockwell was going to play Zaphod over the top. I knew there was no way Mos Def could work as Ford. I think it's just thr wrong time to try to make it. Maybe if they'd tried twenty years ago it would have turned out to be a better movie, despite the awful special effects it would have had.
*shrug*
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I saw this only a month or so ago but it made so little impression I don't even remember the cheesy love story. Was this the movie where Zaphod Beeblebrox should have had two heads and didn't? And Slartibartfast was pretty OK? That's about all I'm left with.
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I agree with pretty much everything said.
I entered this with very low expectations and was (obviously) still disappointed.
Slartibardfast was pretty good.
I liked the TV series. Sure the production values were bad, but that kind of fit with the spirit of the piece. Note to movie-makers (and video-game makers too) -- Slicker does not always equal better.
The grafted on love story was abominable, as was the trip to the Vogon planet to save Trillian.
Also, the way that Adams-isms were randomly sprinkled in without relation to the story or coherence.
I dunno, I'm feeling better today but I'm still left with the distinct impression that the movie was something DNA would have been more likely to make fun of rather than embrace.
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The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy was the first movie I ever fell asleep in the cinema watching, and I have had to endure Pokemon, Digimon and many chick flicks. I guess that says a lot about how good it was for me.
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The best thing about this movie is that, in moments of consternation, my six year old would run around the house yelling "Humma Kavula! Humma Kavula! Humma Kavula!"
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That's another thing. They introduced a new, completely useless character. There were already dozens of pre-existing completely useless characters they could have used, but NOOOOOO.
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Huh. What do you know. I rather, uh, liked it.
Went out and bought it, in fact. It's sitting in my computer's DVD drive.
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I'm also on the side of "not really interested, because I don't think DNA's work translates well to film." The reviews I heard were extremely mixed, and it seems the same way in the thread; right now my life is in a continual state of emergency, so this one can wait for a few years, I think.
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You know, when I heard the movie was coming out, I finally sat down and read the entire series before I would see a movie that could possibly ruin the books for me. The plan was to read the books and have them fresh in my mind when I went to see the film. I have to say, as I read, I became less and less interested in even seeing the movie, and by the time it came out, I was already done the first three books, and I really didn't want to see it at all anymore. Now, I just don't care. I'm so blah about it. I toy with the idea of renting it, but I know that it would be impossible to be anything but critical about it now...
Also, I finally did see Sideways, and I was "meh" about it too. Meh.
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Also, I finally did see Sideways, and I was "meh" about it too. Meh.
You are so right. And I could have done without (spoiler warning) Thomas Hayden Church's ass.
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I likewise saw the movie with expectations of the lowest order but I was happy enough except for the love subplot. That really hurt didn't it? It just stood out as being totally clumsy and happening for no reason at all. I mean I kind of felt the whole point in the books was that Arthur was so pathetic that he never even had a chance of getting the girl, that's why he was funny. While I'm ranting the guy who played arthur, while good, wasn't quite right for the book character. More bleary eyed and confused than anal retentive englishman and confused. Not that this is necessarily bad, the change in character worked ok, just another way they deviated from the books.
Apart from that I was happy, yeah new useless characters, it's not like they made the plot make any less sense than the other versions and Bill Bailey as the whale was simply brilliance, possibly the most perfect casting ever. The whole point of view gun storyline made no sense and was a really convoluted way to set up Marvin springing everyone at the end (not to mention it drove me nuts trying to remember which book it was they got that idea from, he did it to a tank in the third one whose name I can never remember I think) Also a couple of nice nods to Adams (like Tricia going as Darwin to the fancy dress party).
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You are so right. And I could have done without (spoiler warning) Thomas Hayden Church's ass.
Umm, not to mention that fat dude's dick?
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Oh, thank God I wasn't looking that closely...
I have already related somewhere on this messageboard how much I hated that movie, I think, so I will not repeat myself.
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I liked Sideways. Although I would have traded the view of Thomas Hayden Church's ass for one of Sandra Oh's.
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I love Sideways so I don't really want to say too much here lest I question some of your upbringing, &c.
I gotta go with Aug on Sandra Oh's ass, although we see a goodly portion of her underass area, it wasn't quite enough for my taste.
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The HHG2G movie frustrates me a lot. All the elements are there: a script (mostly) by Adams, decent special effects, a creative team that really did appear to love the matieral, and Alan fuck*ng Rickman as Marvin. But the final product just feels so...empty to me.
I think a big part of it is that Adam's prose just loses so much when people say it outloud. Well, that's not true. It needs to be dry and British, and this movie was mostly American. All the good lines were there. Most of the best guide entries. But they just kind of fell flat as presented in the film.
Another good example is the Whale scene. Funny in the book, just kind of weird in the film.
And Marvin...I love the depressed iPod design, Alan Rickman is who I wanted to play him the second I heard about the movie...but he's just so depressing in the movie. Not like funny depressing, but actual depressing. It's a thin line, but they ended up on the wrong side. His "I've seen it...it's rubbish" line about the Magrathean sunset was one of the first times I've laughed out loud reading a book, but in the movie I barely even noticed it.
Here is what the movie does right: The dolphin song,the whole part on the Vogon homeworld, Slartibartfast (and really most of the stuff on Magrathea), and I actually though the movie's ending was pretty decent. It could have been a lot worse. I think the people who made it really did love and respect the material, but they tried too hard to stick to it (when not deviating from it altogether). I actually liked the added scenes more than the stuff in the book because the added scenes were written for the screen, and seemed to work better. I would have preferred a less faithful movie that was funnier in movie form, if that makes any sense?
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I felt it was entertaining but I would've been happier had he finished Salmon of Doubt and/or "fixed" Mostly Harmless like he said he would.
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I didn't think that the Hitchhiker's Guide movie was bad. I mean, it's obviously not some high-art cinematic masterpiece, but it was a decent enough movie. I didn't go into it expecting it to be 100% faithful to the book, since the 1981 BBC TV series wasn't 100% faithful to the book, and the book itself wasn't even 100% faithful to the old radio series (which, of course, predates the book), so I wasn't sitting around wringing my hands about it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed when I actually saw the movie. In fact, I rather enjoyed it.
I do wonder what the movie might have been like had DNA still been around and had a hand in the production (aside from contributing new concepts and story ideas by way of the screenplay drafts he wrote before he died), though.
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I actually really liked the end of mostly harmless, I just love the idea of Ford laughing his arse off while the world ends and them all dying becuase of a misunderstood cosmic joke. It's like the forces of boredom and beaurocracy (i.e. the Vogons) win, but it doesn't actually matter becuase everyone else is playing a different game.
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Sandra Oh is hot. She's one of the reasons I love Grey's Anatomy. SHE'S HOT I SAY!
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Thomas Haden Church's ass didn't bother me one way or another. I didn't think it was particularly impressive. The heavyset fellow I could have done without, although I did think it was pretty funny.